


Anchor

by watermelonriddles



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 17:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18428951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watermelonriddles/pseuds/watermelonriddles
Summary: "“You found her.” Beth has to take slow, steady breaths. It was [Rio]. He had done it. When she had first told him about Jane she had noted the concern on his face and in his voice but it hadn’t seemed like he was going to get involved. But now because of him, her daughter was safe and the police knew who was behind it without her having to talk."





	Anchor

_Jane has been found. Jane is home. Jane is safe._

Beth has to repeat the words to herself over and over again and when that doesn’t work, she steals glances. All four of her kids are in the living room playing on the floor with their toys and being unusually quiet. She lingers just outside of the room because Beth knows that if she sits by Jane, she’ll hug her close and never let her go again. Dean is sat on the couch, watching the kids, and even though he’s got his back to her, she can tell he’s got that same concerned look that she does. The doctors have said that Jane is perfectly healthy and has suffered no harm at all but it doesn’t stop Beth from wondering if maybe she’s hurt in a way that isn’t easy to see.

Even when Beth shakes the thoughts from her mind, she can’t fully refocus. When the police finally found Jane, they picked up the two men who were watching her. Beth didn’t recognise them but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were connected to the recent drop she had been involved in. There was no way that it was a coincidence and Beth hates herself for it. If she had just stayed in her lane, if she hadn’t of spoken out or acted like the big boss then maybe they wouldn’t have retaliated. She fucked up and considering she got into this life for her family, she had only hurt them.

The other thing that Beth feels is anger. It always starts small. A flicker when she remembers that the bastards who took her daughter are still out there. She knew that the two men who were picked up weren’t going to talk and even if they did, they’d most likely get a bullet between their eyes before they could say or do much of anything. It had been a couple of days since Jane was found and the real people behind it were yet to be caught. Even if they did get arrested, they’re not going down, Beth knows this. And it’s exactly why that flicker grows into something bigger and she finds herself with the urge to hunt them down and make sure they can’t do this again.

It’s all making her thoughts run wild and all she can do is pace and steal glances and feel _everything_. No matter how much time passes, it never feels like it’s going to let up. The police are still investigating and there’s a cop car sat outside the front of her house to keep an eye on things. She can’t exactly tell them all what she knows, she hasn’t even really told Dean, and even if she does, it’s going to bring a whole different world of pain to her family and so it leaves her stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Suddenly there’s a knock at the front door. Dean only looks back for a moment and when he sees her standing there, he focuses back on the kids. Beth glances at the door and edges closer. While Annie and Ruby did say they were coming over, she knew they would just let themselves in. She begins to wonder if this is it. If those bastards have the nerve to come to her front door with two officers parked outside.

As she reaches the door, she grabs for the baseball bat that’s stored beside it and grips it tightly. Every inch of her is tense and suddenly that rage she normally feels when thinking about confronting them dies away and she’s terrified.

But then she opens the door and she’s able to let out a shaky breath.

“ _Rio_.”

He’s standing on her doorstep. His hoodie is doing that half on, half off thing again and he’s got his hands buried deep into his pockets. He tilts his head to the side, his eyes searching her face. It’s early, the sun is slowly rising so it’s not overly bright outside but it’s still light enough to see clearly and she wonders how he got past the cop car before panic settles in that someone might see him.

She grabs his arm and pulls him into the house. As soon as the front door is shut, she quickly leads him through the office so that Dean and the kids won’t see and they go straight to her bedroom. She pushes him in ahead of her and closes the door behind them. For a moment she settles back against it and takes a deep breath to steady herself. Her body is only beginning to relax and the fear is slowly fading away as her heartbeat slows.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, stepping into the room properly and standing by the head of her bed.

Rio has found his way over to her chest of drawers and is leaning back against them. In the process of walking into her room, he’s removed his hoodie and it lays thrown over one of the chairs in the corner.

He studies her for a moment. “I heard you got her back.”

“The police found her, yes,” Beth says. “They got a tip or a lead or something. I was too concerned with making sure she was okay. They’re going to come back tomorrow to see us and go over everything properly.”

“That’s good.”

His voice is soft, genuine, and she can’t stand it. Since the police left she has been on her own, left to try and manage how she feels because she can’t breakdown in front of the kids and she knows for a fact that Dean couldn’t handle it either and just being in the same room as Rio is making her feelings want to overflow. She wants to keep on hating him but then did she ever really feel that way? The way he watches her, it’s like he’s waiting for her to breakdown and she’s fairly confident she might.

“You can’t be here,” she decides. “My family are in the other room and my daughter needs me, this isn’t the time.”

“She’s not hurt,” Rio says. And she can tell it’s not to dismiss her but instead to reassure her.

“But what if she is?” Beth asks, biting her lip. “What if I don’t see it? What if I miss it?”

“Just gotta do your best,” he tells her. “She’s home, she’s okay. If there is something you can’t see, you just gotta be there for her. Be ready to help.”

She looks towards the ground and, as her eyes drift shut, Beth thinks about that for a moment. The rational part of her mind tells her that he’s right. The police, the doctors, they all know what they’re doing. There are people she can get advice from just in case and although that irrational part of her mind is screaming about all of the things that could be wrong, she tries to remind herself that Jane has been found, Jane is home, and Jane is safe.

But then it hits her.

Her head snaps up and her eyes immediately find his. How did he know that Jane was okay? That there is nothing wrong with her? She knows he wasn’t involved, he’s not _that_ asshole no matter what he says or does. Maybe her past suspicions of him having an inside man with the cops are true. But what if it’s not? None of them have left the house since she was found so he couldn’t have been watching them. The seeds of doubt are already there and she can’t… She has to ask.

“How did you know about Jane?” He’s confused. She can see it written all over his face. “Just now you said she was okay, that she wasn’t hurt. How could you know that?”

“I just hoped.” In typical Rio fashion, his face becomes unreadable.

She glares at him. “Don’t lie to me.”

For a moment, he just watches her and Beth is about ready to scream at him when he suddenly reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out an envelope and tosses it onto the bed, motioning for her to pick it up. It’s folded in half so when she does, she has to smooth it out before she can open it.

She briefly glances his way before reaching inside to pull out the contents. Her heart almost stops when she sees pictures of Jane. They look like surveillance photos. The two men who were arrested are also in the photos as well as some men that Beth does recognise from her drop gone wrong.

“What is this?” she asks, holding the contents up for him to see.

“I was debating telling you.”

“Telling me what?” And from the way he watches her and the look in his eyes before he diverts his gaze completely, she knows. “You gave the police their lead.”

“I had my boys searching for her,” Rio explains. “Just for information. They weren’t to get involved. One of them took those photos. Let’s just say I know a guy and the cops were there almost instantly.”

“ _You_ found her.” Beth has to take slow, steady breaths. It was him. He had done it. When she had first told him about Jane she had noted the concern on his face and in his voice but it hadn’t seemed like he was going to get involved. But now because of him, her daughter was safe and the police knew who was behind it without her having to talk. 

“My boy couldn’t get any closer,” Rio continues. “But from what he could see, Jane was perfectly fine. She was smiling and watching cartoons. I really don’t think she got hurt. I had those pictures printed out so you could see their faces.”

Beth has heard enough. It’s like her mind has been allowed to hit pause for just a moment. All of those emotions that were threatening to burst out were being squashed down just enough for her to really feel like she could breathe again. Now all she can do is watch him. Not so long ago she had been debating whether or not she hated him but now? Now she knew that she never could.

Slowly she steps towards him, stopping by the end of the bed. She doesn’t know how to fully process the fact that her daughter had been found because of him. Sure he didn’t go in all guns blazing but without Rio, the police could have been searching for many more hours. Maybe by then, Jane wouldn’t be safe, maybe by then, it would have been much worse.

Rio watches her for a moment before closing the distance between them. Each step is deliberate and slow enough that if she really wanted to, she could turn and run away. But she doesn’t. She stays perfectly still, even when there’s no more space between them and his hand comes up to gently brush her hair aside, his finger gently grazing down the side of her face in that way he likes to do.

As his hand falls away, hers reaches up to cup his cheek. He leans into her touch a little as her thumb lightly ghosts across his cheekbone, making him shiver a little. Her other hand settles on his shoulder, her fingers able to curl a little around the back of his neck.

“ _Rio_.” She says it so quietly that even she almost misses it.

Without thinking, she leans in a little closer. Her hand drops down to his shoulder and they sway a little. When she moves, he moves, mirroring her. With her eyes on him, Beth leans in and presses her lips to his. It’s a small kiss and she pulls away before he has a chance to respond. Instead, she looks him right in the eye because she wants him to know that she’ll never be able to repay him for what’s he done because what he did was everything.

This time he kisses her and his arms are wrapped around her, holding her in closer. Her hands are still settled on his shoulders, fingers digging in a little for support, as they sway on the spot. They kiss, slow and deliberate, and for once, since the whole ordeal happened, Beth feels like she’s anchored. While those concerns and overwhelming emotions are still there under the surface, for just this moment, it feels like she can finally bask in the happiness that Jane was found, Jane was home, and Jane was safe. And that thought alone makes her press further into the kiss, nibbling on his bottom lip just enough to make it all feel a little more real.

Rio lets out this happy little sigh as she does it and one of his hands is against her back, between her shoulder blades, holding her in as tightly as possible. The whole world is alight. Beth knows that come morning time that rage to hunt those bastards down and kill them if the police can’t do anything will be there once again. That the fear she feels won’t leave her for a long time and that this whole thing is far from behind her. But standing there, wrapped up in Rio’s arms, she doesn’t feel so alone or so off course anymore.

But it’s as he breaks the kiss, his forehead pressing gently against her when he whispers her name like it’s the only thing that matters, that Beth finally feels like there’s some hope for moving forward.

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this random thought about whether or not the bedroom scene was a result of Beth finding out that Rio was involved in finding Jane and this is 100% not how I expected this little fic to turn out but yet here we are and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
